The purpose of this blog is to provide a holding, attuned, and provocative space for the mysteries of your heart to unfold. All of you is welcome here, in all of your glory - the painful, the joyous, the heartbroken, and the weary. The invitation is to see your entire life as an expression of high-voltage, creative guidance, and for you to offer yourself to the endless and infinite dimension of love that is emerging within and around you right now.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Turning toward the dark and the difficult

In speaking with a friend this morning, I was reminded of
the great bias in our culture toward the light and away from the darkness. When
we meet with a friend who is sad, feeling hopeless, shut down, or otherwise not
beaming and joyful, we can become convinced, quite quickly, that something
has gone wrong, that some mistake has been made which needs fixing. We scramble
to put them back together, to remind them of all the gifts in their life, to
let them know everything will be better soon, and that it will all turn out
okay.

It is so natural to want to help another and to lessen their suffering and
their pain. There is nothing wrong with this intention and with using whatever
skillful means we have to help. But we can also start to see that much of this
fixing activity arises out of the abandonment of our own relationship with the
darkness within. Perhaps as little ones it was not safe to embrace sadness,
rage, despair, or hopelessness. If our early environment was one in which love,
affection, and connection was withdrawn as a result of our confrontation with
these and other 'non-happy' states of consciousness, we learned (very
intelligently) to disavow their messages, truths, and potential gifts.

It is possible the kindest thing we can offer our suffering friend is to sit in
the darkness with them, removing the burden that they change, transform, feel
better, or heal in order for us to love, accept, or simply be with them. And to
hold them closely as we wade into the icky, messy, yucky areas of the body and
the psyche, vowing with our sweet friend to not turn away from their precious
heart and the reality of their immediate subjective experience, *exactly* as it
is. As we turn to embrace own unmet sadness, grief, and despair, we can begin
to resist the temptation to project our unlived life upon others and the world.

As we come to rest in the wholeness of our immediate, embodied reality, we can
start to see that love is a movement of the totality. It is whole, never
partial, and is raging and alive even in the darkness, shining brightly in its
own way. And that you will never, ever be satisfied with a partial life, with a
partial love, or a partial heart. In the core of the darkness, the sadness, the
grief, and the aloneness is something very real, breaking through the dream of
partiality. But what this is may never support conventional egoic process or
our cultural and spiritual fantasies of a life of invulnerability. To embrace
this may always feel groundless as you fall off the cliff of the known and into
the mandala of presence.

In the wholeness of what you are, everything is alive in its own way,
everything is path, and everything is the integrative activity of the beloved.
She is not only the joy and the sweetness, but at times will arrive as the
darkness itself to reorder your world. She will shape-shift using both sweet
*and* fierce grace, including both peaceful *and* wrathful manifestation, in
order to reveal the primordial integration of her movement in the world of time
and space.

Let us stay close to our own suffering and the suffering of others, careful not
to cut it too quickly. Let us turn toward the darkness before we discard it,
and finally see what it has to say. For we may discover a light shining there
that is heralding a new world.

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About Me

I am a psychotherapist, author, and teacher, working with individuals and groups worldwide. My latest book, The Path is Everywhere, will be available in June 2017. To learn more about me and my work, please visit my website.

I have a PhD in psychology, where my research interests included
contemporary psychodynamic/ relational theory as well as mindfulness-based, contemplative approaches to psychological healing and spiritual transformation. I have long been interested in the dialogue
between Western, developmental and meditative methods of
inquiry and practice.

I worked in the publishing field for over 24 years, most recently Director of Professional Studies for Sounds True, where I organized online training for mental health professionals seeking to deepen their practice in areas such as attachment, trauma, neuroscience, and mindfulness.